On Being a New Dad

While my wife is pregnant with our third kid, I want to document the various stages of the pregnancy as it unfolds on this blog; how the pregnancy can effect dad and how dad can be constructive, helpful, and sensitive throughout.

But first I think it prudent to cover the most monumental change in my life so far and is sure to be until that big change at the end of my life: when my first child was born.

I liked to think that I was the kind of person who was prepared for this occasion; I was from a big family and had two younger sisters, my mom was a childbirth teacher, and I've always known that I wanted to have children. Nevertheless, when my first daughter was born I may as well have been struck by lightening while being eaten by a whale.

The Pregnancy

My wife didn't have a lot of sickness. I know that's easy for me to say. But she did have a downright magical aversion to chicken. She couldn't even see the word written without gagging. Besides this, I don't recall a lot of really tangible evidence that she was pregnant--excepting of course the gigantic test of abdominal elasticity.

When the nesting started, I was, to be perfectly honest, a little annoyed. We had to paint a bedroom and set up furniture for the baby that we weren't even planning on using since we were going to co-sleep. That said, she had a perfect vision for how the room should be (which I also found very perplexing) and all I had to do was go through the motions. The room was set up well before the baby arrived and for as long as we lived in that house, she never slept in that room.

I realize now that it wasn't unnecessary that we set up that room, though. I know now that it was something that she had to do--she felt baby inside her and she had to physically manifest a readiness for the arrival. On the other hand, despite my intellectual understanding of the situation, I had no idea what was going to happen. I had no idea we were really going to have a baby.

The Birth

I don't pay for enough bandwidth to talk fully about the birth. I could write for a month and not be half way through the experience. It was at once the most memorable day of my life and the most surreal. One memory that sticks out at me was walking down the halls at the hospital and hearing a baby cry from the room next to ours. I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever heard--for the first time it occurred to me that we would be hearing a baby cry from our room. And still nothing was real to me. Still I had no idea.

We lost the battle of our birth from the beginning. My daughter was born in the same backwards hospital where I was born. We thought ourselves a well-prepared couple, but the hospital was infamous for it's greater than 60% cesarean rate which was symbolic of their love of medical intervention. Our birth was as natural as we could have hoped for with the nurses and doctor begging us to just get the epidural already.

When my wife actually pushed the baby out, a change washed over me instantly. It was like the floor fell out from under me but I was still standing. It was like I shed my skin and was a completely new creature underneath. It was like died and was reborn. I can talk in metaphors about it all day, but the simple truth of the matter is that no analogy could possibly capture the change that happened in me. I will never be the same person that I was the instant before the baby was born.

That night, in the hospital, my wife cried like I had never seen her cry before while looking at our daughter. She didn't feel deserving of having such a perfect child. I felt the same way and the three of us--our new family--cuddled up on the narrow hospital bed together and looked at each other, trying in some way to achieve an understanding.

The New Constant

I knew, intellectually, what my parents and all those silly sex-ed classes told me a million times, that having a baby was a 24-hour commitment. But those words were shadows on the wall, mere black and white two-dimensional representations of the full color, 3-D reality of what that means.

For the first week or so, we were both walking zombies. We oscillated between giddy and thrilled and tired and overwhelmed. I had the potential to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation while sitting upright in the middle of the day. Nursing was a huge challenge, one that I have documented to some extent here, and was the central focus of my life.

No one told me that babies don't really know how to breathe steadily right away. We spent hours discussing the varied length between breaths that our daughter would take. We worried almost as much as we marveled at the little thing.

Baby Blues

My wife had a terrible bought of postpartum depression. Really, it's still with us in many ways. there's enough material in our struggle for several entries and I'm sure they will come when I feel like I could get at the heart of things.

The New Dad

I don't complain when I say that I have never been put "first" in our family since then. Every decision, from my job to my free time to what I eat has something to do with my role as father. Every fiber of my being is wrapped up in that role. I don't really know how else to do it. As I have said before, I feel lucky that I had an involved father so I know half of what I should do.

As we approach our third birth, we want to really have the birthing experience we've always wanted. This means trying to find the money for a birthing center or home birth, being better prepared with exercises and techniques, and reading books upon books to focus our wills. Throughout the experience, I hope to document what it is like being a human who will soon have made another one.

Father's Day

About a week or so ago, my wife and I found out we are pregnant with our third kid. Wow. We're excited and I think it hasn't even really hit us yet. It is through the lens of becoming a father for the third time that I have started examining Father's Day.

This Father's Day is the 100th such day in this country. Father's Day was first introduced as an afterthought to Mother's Day. The celebration of the man's role in parenting wasn't as natural a fit to a psuedo-holiday as to express appreciation for Mothers. Even now it seems like there is general disagreement as to how to celebrate dads--or if they should, indeed, be celebrated.

There is something very natural to Mother's Day that the Dad's day just seems to be lacking. Something I can't stand is the cliche Father's Day gifts: neck ties, golf clubs, business socks. To me, such gifts reinforce the dad's role as breadwinner and discount the idea of a dad as an engaged parent. They show that a dad's most important role is his job and his independent pastimes are his most enjoyable times--a celebration of apartness. I was at a steakhouse the other day that had a big sign saying "Open at 10:00am on Father's Day!" Yes, because my dad wants a steak for breakfast. In contrast, the cliche gifts of Mother's Day--flowers, spa treatments, etc--at least express a sensitivity to the delicate role of Mother and an invitation to put herself first for once.

The fact that there are these standby notions of Father's Day gifts (mostly given to us by the media in the first place) shows a schizophrenic attitude towards fathers in our culture; it's best embodied by the question: "What the hell is a Father supposed to be, anyway?"

I've made the argument previously that the most important role a father plays is not as breadwinner or provider, but as role model. For me, it's always been easy to appreciate my dad, but it's even more so now that I have kids. I don't know what kind of dad I would be if I hadn't seen it done right in the first place.

But how the hell do I show thanks? Do I buy a card that someone else wrote? Do I get him something for his office or his BBQ? Do I take him out to dinner? And how will my kids try and show it when they're older? It seems to me like Father's Day is a natural time to try and weave in some family activities of some kind; a trip, a visit, a picnic. A CD is as close as I can come to thinking of a gift that doesn't break the bank and can still be personal.

Father's Day will always be second fiddle when it comes to the Hallmark Holidays. But it's not because fathers are any less important than mothers. Just as the role of a caring dad often has to be invented by the one living it, so does the way to celebrate and express appreciation for a job well done have to be improvised.

I don't think that my dad will care that we don't make a big deal about Father's Day. I know that I don't care if I get a card or hug or whatever on that one day. The best way that I can think of to celebrate fatherhood is to practice it with care and understanding--to embody everything that I saw my dad do right as best as I can. That's something that just can't be expressed by breakfast steaks and neck ties.

Related Articles:
In Defense of Fatherhood
10 Rules for being a role Model
Putting Family First

Is Bedtime a Badtime?

Bedtime seems to go in cycles around here. Just when we get in a comfortable phase of putting them in bed, all bathed and happy, kissing them goodnight and tiptoeing away to the melodious sound of synchronized snores, things change.

The change seems to happen the night after (or the minute after) one of us remarks to the other parent "Wow, they sure are good at going to bed these days." Then bedtime reverts to the all out war that it seems to be about two weeks out of the month.

I have a theory that it's not because we've done anything wrong that this change happens. I don't generally credit it to a change in diet, or a change in routine, or a change in the stars. It just seems like consistency isn't what they're looking for a bedtime--at least not long term. They want the routine changed every so often and by the time they tell you they want the change, it's too late.

We cycle through different pre-bedtime rituals to try and make the night go down more smoothly. From this following list, we mix and match until we have a mixed grill of a nighttime schedule that works for the next few weeks.

Reading at Bedtime: This is a classic for obvious reasons. It gives us some time to wind-down, talk calmly, and read something that is comforting (even though I like them best when they get just a little bit scary in there). My favorite bedtime stories are from Maurice Sendak, but don't stop with Where the Wild Things Are; also try Outside over There and The Night Kitchen.

Singing: I happen to enjoy singing lullabies. I don't think that it's a good idea to introduce this ritual if you don't enjoy it. It has staying power and you will have requests over and over again. I usually take this one out of the routine when I notice that my girls are staying awake just to make me sing more. My favorites to sing are "Feed the Birds," "Sweet Baby James," and "Pooh Corner." But they often make me sing a drawn-out version of The Decemberists "The Crane Wife" oddly enough.

Bedtime Music: We have a small CD player that we play lullabies on. This works sometimes as a substitute to singing and sometimes in addition to. We have a few different CDs and mixes to change things up. But, like all these others, their tastes sometime drift away from this ritual.

Story of the Day: This is especially good if we've had long, active days or had visitors. We sit and talk about all the things we did today, each taking turns coming up with details to fill it out. Then, we end by planning out our next day. This works really well for making our expectations if we have big plans for tomorrow.

Holding Hands: Sometimes I have to sit there and hold hands until my older daughter goes to sleep. This only works when she's really tired and had some kind of a scare. She is usually asleep pretty fast, or I just can't stay there all night and she moves into our bed. Holding hands is a last resort before:

Pulling my own hair out and screaming until I die: Sometimes nothing works. We have the girls shack up with us in our bed like we used to and hope to move them sometime in the night so that we can get some rest, too. The main thing is to realize that no matter how prepared you are, you're not always going to come out successfully. I don't actually recommend pulling out hair or screaming or dying, but it sure sounds like it would be helpful.

I always tell my daughters when they play keep-away with our German Shepard, "Don't play to win, just play." That's how I feel about bedtime. Don't play to win. In the end, they can always outlast your patients if you make it a power struggle. Just talk things out, give in if you must, but set expectations that this night is different from tomorrow night.

Should Bookstores be Socially Responsible?

We have a habit of hanging out at bookstores. We’ve had this habit since way before we had kids. In several of the towns where I’ve lived, the local libraries weren’t much to write home about. Besides being terribly under stocked and in the “wrong” area of town, they also had lousy hours and didn’t feel conducive to hanging around being semi-social. So, we got in the habit of frequenting large chain bookstores.

This isn’t anything original to us. Many people are turning bookstores into their own little living rooms. They go, have coffee, a muffin, read the day’s paper, talk on the phone, whatever. In college I often chose to study at Borders instead of the college library because it was closer to my house and it felt like I was out doing something. These places are semi-public spaces that are turning more and more into semi-private places.

This habit of ours leaked very comfortably into our lives as parents. Many Barnes & Nobles have train tables to play with, little stages to play on, and several cozy reading nooks for kids to get into. And of course, when we lived in Austin, we spent an inordinate amount of hours at the world’s greatest bookstore, BookPeople, which was so full of fun activities and a wide selection of books that there was rarely a question of what to do when it was just too damn hot outside.

But with the exception of the above mentioned independent bookseller, being at these places has always come with a challenge for us as parents. My daughters—when they tire of playing with the train or dancing on the stage—want me to read books to them. That much is great. But the problem is distinguishing between books and toys.

The basic rule I’ve come down to is this: books have an author listed, toys do not. So much of what is seemingly a book, isn’t a book at all. There are a million Princess books that have no listed author, as there are with Backyardigans, Elmo, Dora, My Little Pony, Hanna Montana, and every other imaginable character. (Now, I have a soft spot for Disney, thanks to well over a hundred trips to Disneyland, but that doesn’t change my stance about their “books”).

Even worse are the books that are actually just toys in a book shaped box. They have buttons, make noises, play songs, or are actually filled with little knick-knacks of every imaginable persuasion. They are a real and true blight on the bookstore. And, they are specifically designed to attract children.

Obviously, I can’t explain to my kids that I don’t want to read books without authors to them. But I do try and explain why I don’t want to read princess book after princess book, or why it’s no fun to hear an electronic beep play “muffin man” a billion times in a row for no particular reason. Usually, while they are involved in the initial distraction of the train, the toys, or whatever, I make a round and pick out several books that I would like to read. Some old favorites, like Suess and Sendak, and some new or seasonally exciting ones. Then, I try and persuade them to look at these books with me, as the stories are so much better than the plight of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony as she tries to throw a party for Minty.

These toy-books are positioned to be the most reachable. They attract children with familiar characters (many of them at least familiar from the grocery store, Target, and kid’s shirts that they play with). And, of course, I’m sure they sell great. Many parents are like, “Cool, you want a book, we’ll buy it.” Or hapless grandparents who aren’t sure what to buy pick them up based on accessibility. They even have line after line of these books that are supposed to teach the child to read—because the parents would have no idea how to do that without the Elmo puppet’s help that’s attached to many of these.

If you want your children to grow up to be readers, you have to look past the marketing. You have to encourage them to read books that are worth reading. In the long run, they will notice the effects of a good book versus a bad book.

On a recent trip to Borders, their seasonal wall was overcome with a new display of Disney Fairies books—all of which burst onto the market the same day as the Borders-Disney sweepstakes. The other four tables around it—together representing the five most accessible areas of books for kids—had signs attached to them as follows: “At the Movies;” “Hannah Montana;” “Make it a Nickelodeon Night;” and “Your Favorite Characters” (all of which, apparently, can be found on TV).

Should bookstores recognize their position as the new public book space? Should something be done to increase library funding for better hours, more pleasing kids areas, and better lighting? Should they lead buyer for Barnes & Noble—the single most powerful person in publishing—recognize the importance of good literature for every age? Or should we just buckle to our typical post-capitalist apathy of, “Hey, they’re a business, they want to make money, Jackass!”

Businesses run from our money. The libraries run from our money. We should expect more of them, and we should, therefore, expect more of ourselves.

Imagination and Curiosity

My daughter has the most depressing imaginary friend in the whole world. Her name is Blently (the imaginary friend, not my daughter) and she lives by herself. She has no parents, no friends, no way to get across town to visit my daughter. When I ask what Blently eats, I am told that she likes pizza and macaroni. When I ask how she gets her food, I am told that “a man” gives it to her, but that he doesn’t stay to eat with her.

I don’t know what to make of Blently. She pops up in conversation every now and then. Usually it’s an announcement in the car, something like, “Blently is very sad today. She still does not have anything fun to do.” When I offer to pick the poor girl up, I am told that “She is very busy and cannot play.” I ask if there’s any way that Blently can come and play at a time when Mommy and Daddy don’t watch—hoping to bring some relief to the monotony of the poor girl’s life. But, no, she has no way to get to our house and she will be too busy at any given time.

Yet, there are some qualities of Blently’s that I’m afraid my daughter likes. For one, Blently is 4, a year older than my daughter. She could use the potty several months before my daughter could. She can also sing very beautifully, but, one supposes, to a null audience. She can write, she can read, and she doesn’t cry when she’s lonely. Their choices of food seem pretty much the same.

Could it be that Blently is my daughter’s Tyler Durden?

I hope not. I hate to think that somehow my daughter’s unfulfilled fantasies of living by herself in a kingdom of loneliness. Psychologists have come a long way in how they view imaginary friends. Even Dr. Spock said some pretty depressing things about imaginary friends in his early career and much of these have been mainly debunked by now.

I don’t think that imagination is a bad thing. I don’t think that having an imaginary friend is, for the most part, anything but fun. I don’t want to stifle any aspect of my daughter’s creativity with this whole Blently thing, though I do wish she’d let the poor girl branch out from her dungeon.

Imagination is another side of curiosity, to me. By playing through this Blently scenario, my daughter is exploring the world. She is discovering what it would be like to live by herself—even if she were a year older—and in what ways she is dependent on family for her everyday things. She is also exploring the realms of happiness that she has playing with friends and with her little sister.

And curiosity is only a good thing. Whenever someone is praised for being “smart,” all they are seeing is the level of curiosity that the person exhibits. The answers to whatever questions one may pose are out there—it’s the questions that elude most people. If someone asks you why the sky is blue and you know the answer (Rayleigh scattering), it’s only because you bothered to ask the question yourself one day.

It is an important role of a parent to cultivate a child’s curiosity. Easy answers or brush-offs are not conducive to this; don’t train your child to feel stupid for asking a question. Instead, follow them through and show them how each answer can lead to other questions.

In the meantime, I have to try and encourage my daughter to come up with someone less heartbreaking to hear about every day.

Changes

The other day I was driving from Houston to Austin and I got a call from an old friend of mine. I've known her for as long as we've both been alive and she became a mom shortly after I became a dad. We were talking about potty training--the ups and downs of the whole thing--and, specifically, we were talking about cleaning out the tiny potty after, well, number two.

I broke into my own conversation, which was in a very descriptive stage, to point out that all the years we've known each other, the subject of cleaning crap out of a plastic receptacle had never really come up before; things had changed a lot in the past couple years. It was a mildly interesting interjection.

I remember when I was really young hearing my grandma say that nothing in this world is constant but change. While I feel that change is constant, the rate of change is fluctuating. If I think about the changes that occurred in my life from ages 15-17, it can't begin to compare to the changes in my life from ages 25-27.

It's like plate tectonics. Pressure and tension build up over time and then WHAM, an earthquake slaps the surface. And now, watching my daughters grow up is like having massive aftershocks every single day. They are expressions of flux, every day growing and learning. They learn more in a single day than I can take in during a semester of graduate school.

Without a doubt the biggest moment of change in my life was when my first daughter was born. It was a palpable feeling; probably something like dying would be. Seriously. Or maybe like being born, myself. I felt like I fell apart and was something else entirely. As much as I've tried to write about that moment over and over in my life, I've never found the right words. I've never come close, and I really don't expect to any more.

The earthquake of that moment is still being felt. In a single instant, priorities shifted forever, concerns toppled, things were put into focus and others taken out of focus, the world that I lived in seems silly and trifling now, and the world now seems multilayered--stratified with superficial concerns on the bottom, ideas of consumerism waddling in the muck going up to petty concerns about money, and the lightest layers floating on top; the joy and mystery of life, the feeling of a baby falling asleep on your chest.

I think it's a shame that some people are able to overcome the power of that change. Some people are able to go back to their old concerns and priorities. Maybe they've just been rooted in them for so long. Maybe they feel that there is time in their lives for everything.

The world is at once infinite and temporary to me, these days. I think it's important to take a moment now and then, see where we've been, and take note of where we are. Where are my priorities today? Have I put them in the right place, or have I fallen into really old habits again? How can I help guide the change that will happen today, push it in a positive direction for my kids? Yes, it's just one day. The world they make today, they will change tomorrow, so every single step counts.

10 Activities for Toddlers on a Rainy Day

We spend a lot of time outside. For at least a few hours every afternoon, we go outside and play, either on the playground in the backyard, or ride trikes, or play with the neighborhood kids. This is addition to going on walks or feeding the ducks at the pond down the street.

The burden of spending lots of time outside is felt when the weather isn't cooperative. We don't live where it snows, and though we get a lot of rain here, it comes on a comparatively small number of days a year. If they're used to being able to run around and cut loose everyday, a couple days without it can lead to pent-up energies that can result in high octane arguments and first rate fighting. It's no fun, for anyone.

So we've spent a lot of time trying to navigate these inside times. We have a mix between old standbys and new favorites. Play around with some of these and see what works for you.

1. Playing Rice
This is one of my wife's inventions. On the kids craft table, she sets out buckets, funnels, measuring cups, spoons, and bowls. Then she fills the buckets with rice (dry, obviously, as cooked rice would have some pretty frustrating results when poured through a funnel). The kids are happy to "play rice" for up to two hours at a time. Two hours! This is a great time to clean the kitchen or read a book. You could probably also play beans, or play macaronis, or something.

2. Play dough
This is an obvious one. Play dough, or any comparable knock-off, is cheap and versatile. They really bank on you buying a lot of accessories for playing with the stuff, which you really don't have to. Household utensils work wonders with the stuff. And, if you really want to get affordable, with a little bit older kids, it's easy to find a recipe and make the stuff. They get a kick out of it. Plus, you can find recipes that harden in the oven for painting. Great for the holidays. That brings us to...

3. Painting
Watercolors are fine, and washable paint is okay. But, really, any acrylic craft paint can be washed off if caught in a relatively short period of time, and the colors are so much more bright and vivid.

4. Shaving Cream Paintings
If your kids get sick of the regular old painting, or if they like finger painting, then this is a great activity. Mix shaving cream in a bowl with the desired food coloring. Then, they can spread the colored fluff all over a page to make intricate designs that bleed into each other. Fun.

5. Shaving Cream Cleaning
Shaving cream does a great job of cleaning surfaces like tables and counter tops. Let the kids spread it all over the place, and when it is wiped off, the table is shiny clean. Pretty awesome to have fun and clean.

6. Build a Fort
The only drawback of turning the couch or the beds into a fortress is how often they'll want to do it in the coming days. Having small, cozy places to hide and stay is wonderfully comforting to a toddler. It may serve as inspiration to make a cozy reading nook in their room.

7. Throw a Party
This can be especially fun if you know that the next day is going to be unpleasant and you want to turn the tides by setting up a morning surprise. Put up streamers, hang balloons, bake a cake, play dance music, set up simple games like pin the tail on the donkey.

8. Music Time
Getting the family together to sing is engaging and very good for child development. If you're not musically inclined, look at it as an opportunity to learn along with your child. Get a used guitar, buy a book, and learn some children's songs.

9. Dress-up
We have a dress-up trunk in our kids' closet. It's full of old clothes, aprons, sunglasses, Halloween costumes, and the like. It's great to pull out on rainy days.

10. Bake something
Making bread, muffins, biscuits, or cakes can be a lot of fun for kids, especially if they know they're going to get to eat them later. This may be better for older kids, and it is best if you can find different responsibilities for the kids to be in charge of in the process.

When seen as an opportunity to break from routine, enhance artistic skills, and spend some family together time, bad weather can be a good thing. If you have some other activities that get you through a rainy-day schedule, please post them below.

Potty Party Part II: The Outcome

Last week, I reported the details of my family's desperate plan to potty train our kids, the potty party. As a quick recap, the plan was to throw a day-long party to celebrate the absence of diapers in our home. The idea was that by forcing them to come up with non-diapered means of expulsion through a positive theme, we would circumnavigate all the hurt feelings and frustration that we've been experiencing over the whole idea.

The whole day was a wash. I mean, we had fun, but there was no notion of household productivity. The decorations were hung, the cake was made, and just to throw a harpoon in the whale of the notion of diet, we had homemade chocolate chip buscuits for breakfast and brought in pizza for dinner. The day was shamefully full of movie watching, and the yard rested quietly outside, escaping even the slightest effort of mantanence that I might have considered appropriate on a regular Saturday. But the pottys were set up and waiting, and that's what mattered.

It worked--mostly.

We now stand at a new and exciting ratio of potty users in the famiy; our older daughter has not worn a diaper since Friday, and it is now Wednesday. To top that off, she hasn't had even a single accident.

All we had to do was weather the first excruciating half of Potty Party Day (as it will hence be refered). She screamed. She begged. She ran in circles. She wanted a bath (presumably to be used as a covert urinal) and argued that her dirty fingernails demanded bathtime attentions. All the while, her little sister sat happily on her potty--holding everything in for all it was worth.

We almost caved at least once every hour.

And finally, at noon, she could hold back no longer. She sat on her little potty, positioned comfortably in the living room, squeezing my hand in terror. Then, finally, she looked at me and said, "Daddy, don't be happy." I assured her I wouldn't be.

"Daddy," she said, "Don't be proud." Again, pride was far from my demenor.

"Daddy," she begged, "Don't clap and say 'yay.'" And I told her I wouldn't.

"I pee-peed."

The chear that I let out instantly broke all of those forced promises, but she cheered, too. She wanted to call her grandparents. She wanted the world to know. And she pull on her panties with what can only be described as glee.

Ever since then, she has, perhaps, over-pottied. She takes such pride that if she's not fully occupied, she will choose to practice her art.

For whatever reason, our younger daughter just wasn't ready. She begrudgingly returned to diapers. Despite sitting on the potty, she just won't go in it. Her big sister is trying to teach her, with limited success. We'll try again, soon, to get her to go cold turkey like her sister, but, heck, she is a year younger.

So, if you're stuck with an older kid in diapers, the Potty Party just might be for you.

Potty Party may lead to Pity Party

My daughters are ages 2 and 3. They are bright young girls with vocabulary skills that really blow my mind from time to time. And while every parent takes pride in the developmental milestones of their children, there's one that I'm just plain vexed by. That damn potty training.

To be honest, I feared it for long before I ever had kids. I have an abnormal memory, as far as I can tell, remembering many mundane events that happened before my second birthday. I remember the frusteration of not being able to communicate and I remember the dread and despair of potty training. Why in the world would my Mom insist that I try using a potty when the diaper thing was working out just fine? Well, probably because she was six months pregnant and didn't want to have two kids in diapers.

Man, do I understand that now. Our older daughter has been ready to use the potty for at least a year. She can tell you when she is planning on going pee (especially a pleasure in public) and she sequesters herself when she has to do any more than pee. Then, she gives you a report about her estimated size of the delivery.

It's heartbreaking.

And we don't know why she hates the potty so. We're sick of hearing people's advice on the subject because there just isn't any correlation between her and a potty-using child; there's no common ground on which to compare them. She just won't sit on the damn thing. Not for reward or punishment (though, I suppose, we stopped short of any kind of punishment, and maybe a taser would work wonders).

Our second daughter is on her way down the same path. She did like to sit on the potty, though there was never any positive outcome, as she would then stand up to pee. But watching and imitating her sister is the subject that she has most mastered and she can tell that this potty thing must be some kind of trick, trap, or otherwise undesirable type of monster. S she now refuses to sit.

I think this is about control. I think this is about power.

We're very read-up on the subject. We haven't taken this lightly, and all the advice we have heard and read about has been tried. But still, we can't get over the idea that they have mastered their digetive tracks well enough to do it and that we don't want to cause them any lasting emotional trauma.

With all of this in mind, we are going to try one more time.

The Potty Party. It's our last hope. After this doesn't work, I'm going to wait until they go to college and let the dean of student activities deal with the situation.

Tomorrow morning, they will wake up to a near-Christmas caliber event. Wrapped, new potties, one for each. Soli's favorite color is pink, and Luna's oscillates between blue and green. We will rid them of their diapers under the majesty of streemers and balloons. Their brand new baby dolls (today's payday, in case you didn't catch this expensive trend) will have to be potty trained. The girls will delight in this, of course, as they understand the wonderment of potting even though they haven't indulged.

Then, they will have to put things into action for themselves. There will be fancy, cute, panties at their call standing by for wearing. And there will be cake baking, should they make the big score.

It's silly. And, honestly, I don't want such a party every time I go potty (though a little more fanfare would be nice). And I just don't know if it will work. But I'm sick of diapers. I'm sick of feeling like I can't do it. In many ways, this mirrors the frustration that I had when I potty trained, only now I'm having it from the other side.

So wish us luck, because we'll be want for it. And I'll let you know after the weekend if I recommend your own potty party, or if it was a bust.

In the meantime, please enjoy an on-topic video:

9 Ways to be more Productive

Yesterday I had a pretty embarrassing moment of consumer-culture thinking. My neighbor is getting a lot of yard work done and workers were tearing out the old brick on his walkway. I asked the workers what they were planning to do with the old brick, and they said they were going to throw it out.

Naturally, I couldn't see all those tons of brick going to waste while our back patio is rotting to pieces, so with their permission, I started to haul it away. I had on my leather work gloves which haven't been used in years and was bent over throwing the dirty bricks into a wheelbarrow. The smell of the dirt, gloves, and barrow suddenly reminded me of something. I thought to myself, "Wow, this smells just like a home and garden store."

My next thought was, "Man, have I gotten soft."

And later on, after all the bricks were moved, I noted to myself that I haven't been so sore since the last time I went to the gym--which was a long time ago. Too much of my life, I realized, is built around consumerism. If I'm going to lift weights at the gym, I may as well stay home and get some yard work done. Or build a playhouse, ride a bike, fix my fence. And, by God, a home and garden store ought to remind me of working in my home and garden and not the other way around!

I want to set some goals for myself that I can follow to make my life more productive and less driven by consumer culture. Following the idea of making small, measurable goals, I'm focusing on what I can do this week to set new standards for myself. Here's the list:

1. Eat Only at Home
This may be easy for a lot of people out there, but it has always been a pain for me. Through a series of financial ups and downs in my childhood, I have come to associate eating at home with stress and eating out with celebration. And when things get stressful for me now, I want to go out to eat to alleviate it. Being aware of this pattern is not enough to change it for me. So I will think day-to-day that I will have less guilt if I just eat at home.

2. Make food from Scratch
In the past, I've made the resolution to eat at home and then done something that I feel is just as bad--eat half-homemade foods. But so far this new year, I have made myself proud. I don't eat out of a box or out of a can (unless I'm using canned ingredients for something that's out of season). In fact, I haven't even bought a loaf of bread in almost three months. Instead I bake all of my bread from scratch. It tastes better and costs about 25 cents a loaf. And no, I don't have a bread machine. You don't need a bread machine to make bread at home. And you feel good about yourself when you can take something so basic, do it yourself, and have it be better. It goes from being empty filler to being something substantial.

3. Find a new way to get to work
Biking to work is an impossibility for some people. That is unfortunate. We actually bought our house with this in mind. Actually, we even moved to this town with this in mind. When I ride my bike to work, I don't stress about traffic, and though it takes a little longer, I arrive at work or at home feeling better. If you can't bike to work where you live, perhaps you can take a bus, a train, or walk.

4. Walk to the park with the kids
Where we live we're in walking distance of several parks with playgrounds. Taking a walk with the kids to one of these parks has the dual effect of getting exercise for me and wearing out the kids. It's amazing, but over half of Americans get no exercise every day. Absolutely none. When I was younger, I never would have thought of walking as exercise, but now, sure, it's more than I usually do.

5. Make a Garden
If you don't have one yet, make one now. We have a pretty big yard and get lots of rain. There's plenty of space to start growing our own food. I've never been all that fond of vegetables, but it's about time I changed my mind about that. I think that growing my own will make the whole process feel more rewarding, much like the bread making. If you don't live in a situation where you can have a garden, there is the possibility of a community garden.

6. Build Something
I don't know what I'm going to do with those bricks. I can make the new patio with it and save money, or I could see it as a gift and make a barbecue pit. Again, lifting weights is great for getting into shape, but wouldn't it be more interesting

7. Donate Stuff
It's that time again. Every so often it's a good idea to get rid of unplayed with toys and unworn clothes. My house has the tendency to fill with clutter and I just don't know how it does it. But I know the cure. Not too long ago, we sold 20 boxes of books to a used book store. It was nice to get rid of all the books we won't read again and know that they can move on to people who haven't read them.

8. Volunteer
There's a community beautification project this Saturday. Or, Habitat for Humanity is building about 15 miles away and still needs people. Next week, my wife can lead a workshop about self-esteem for preteen girls. There are tons of volunteer options out there and we don't take advantage nearly enough.

9. Make a Date with the Wife
My wife and I spend a lot of time together, but it is always family time. There's nothing wrong with that, but I do feel like it's important to nurture the one-on-one relationship. Maybe my sister will play with the girls while we go out. Or maybe we'll put the girls to bed on Friday and instate a no computer, no tv, no books night. We could play board games, work on a project together, or have *ahem* other kinds of fun. Anyway, we won't waste our night and we'll be taking time for each other.

***

It's important to take time and make it useful. So much of our time gets wasted and we feel like it's taken from us. Focus your energy, focus your time, and the resulting productivity will resonate throughout your life.

The Sex Talk

A recent trip to visit our folks resulted in my three-year-old wondering where babies come from. Something had to spawn it sooner or later, and it is probably fortuitous considering all the talk there's been around here lately about a third baby. All the same, it was somewhat unexpected and really, there was no real strategy in place. Here's how it went:

Solstice (that's daughter number one) was looking at pictures of me when I was her age. This is something that grandparents love to thrill grandkids with. This information, about me being her age at one time in the universe, got her to thinking. Finally, while in the car, she quizzed her mother on the situation. "Mommy," she said, "do you remember when Daddy was a little boy?"

She answered truthfully that she didn't, but that she met me much later. This led to a series of questions getting at the heart of the whole issue. Finally, my wife told her that we had met, fallen in love, and gotten married. "Was I there?" she asked.

My wife did her best to explain that, no, she wasn't there, that it was before she was born, before she was a baby. But that we decided to have a baby. "You went to the store?" Well, no, we didn't go to the store. She explained to Solstice that Daddy put her in Mommy's stomach so that she could grow in there.

And now, Solstice had fully grasped the situation. "Oh," she said conclusively, "He used his magic wand."

Hmm. Not exactly. But the resultant laughing was enough to end the conversation without any of the more explicit details.

So what do we do about the whole "sex talk" thing? I've read a few things lately by people in the field who say that around age 8 is the right time. But by the time my 3 year old is 8, will it be too late? And if she's this curious right now, how do we put things off further? We can't really have her telling people in public that her new sibling was put into her mommy's tummy by daddy's magic wand! That would be considerable more disturbing for those listening to this astonishing fact than the gory truth of the thing.

As for me, I cannot remember not knowing. It's not due to any lack of memory as I remember my 2nd birthday. But I'm sure at that age I didn't have a lot of wonder about the subject. I imagine that it has more to due with the fact that my mom was a childbirth teacher and somewhat of a hippie. I don't remember a single time that "the talk" was delivered to me, but many instances of simple explanation that I mainly shied away from.

Conversely, there are many friends of mine who say that their parents never told them. They had to find out friends and their varying sources of reliability. I think this is mainly a selfish point of view in parenting, where the parent hopes to avoid a conversation that will feel awkward.

I wonder how our generation will handle this one. There are lots of books that explain this with illustrations and the like, but I don't know if I really want to read the book with the cartoon penis in it every night before bed. While, yes, at this point in my parenting life I hope that my girls never have any interests in boys, I know this can't ultimately be the case. And unlike people, like our dear president, who think that sex education should be about how to avoid sex, I think it should be about education. And with the curious minds I already have in tow, I don't believe in holding back truths from a mind seeking to learn something.

I am curious to know how the more experienced parents handled this and how the others plan on handling it. I don't think that by any means this is the defining issue of our children's lives, and I think that most of the drama is parent-induced. Nevertheless, all discourse is helpful.

The Power of Language in Childhood Creativity

Certainly the most amazing thing we will ever accomplish is over and done with by age five. Scale Mt. Everest, swim the Pacific, be the first person to walk on Mars, and it doesn't matter--your very biggest accomplishment is resting softly behind you with no laurels, no medals, and hardly a thought put into it after the milestone of preschool is reached. Of course, what we're talking about is the aquisition of language.

But to say "the aquisition of language" and act like we have a true understanding of what we speak of is to make the greatest understatement in human history. To aquire, master, or even understand any form of language is to gain a cognitive universe, full of ups, downs, emotions, colors, textures, and thought. All of these notions that we have about what reality is are based on the way that we use language. Our very perceptions of reality would shift dramatically without this basic skill.

Much has been written about this that I'd love to quote, but a blog entry can only be so long and, after all, I have a point to make somewhere after this meandering, so let me show you what I'm talking about.

Words as a substitute for understanding

When my oldest daughter was just beginning to speak, she expressed her curiosity about the world through her use of language. We, in turn, showed her the world that surrounds her by also using the language. As she aquired words, she not only had ways of saying things, but she aquired understandings about the world around her. And, even if she ultimatley didn't understand the concept she was trying to grasp, using a word as a replacement for the understanding being sought was enough for her.

Here's a good example: She started to wonder where I went all day. She would wake up, and I wouldn't be there most days of the week. For her, the universe is small, the population mainly centered in and around our house, and she, of course, couldn't fathom what it was I was doing not within the framework of her universe. She said this by shaking her head, putting out her arms, and saying, "Daddy? Where Daddy?" Easily enough, her question was posed.

The answer was, "At work."

And every day, she would nod and say, "At work."

This progressed. After a week or two of this question/anser jag, she started coming into the room and announcing, "Daddy at work."

Let me ask you this: what did a 14 month old know about "work?" Nothing, really. It was a place that Daddy goes instead of staying at home. She couldn't possibly know that this was normal for daddies everywhere, or what a myriad of different meanings "work" can have, both by definition and by context. But she was more than willing to take that word and use it as understanding, as meaning. And only now that she's three does she have much of an understanding at all.

Our kids do this with everything we teach them. Every little tiny thing. They take it as understanding and meaning. So how we present the world to them doesn't just offer description of a reality, but it gives them the only reality they know. This is heavy stuff. This is their world.

Okay, so what do we do with this information?

First of all, beats me. I mean, this is a big realization, that our responsibilities are not just to teach our children to speak, but to actually design the world that they live in. My wife could have easily told my daughter that I was off "killing" instead of being at "work." And it would be easy to show the ways that my part in the system of education can lead to things like poverty and war and deaths. And this is the world that she would be living in now.

But I think this presents us with great opportunity. I don't think that children should be molded. I think it's unavoidable that we should show them our beliefs and our ideals, but I don't think they should be forced. And I think this realization about language is a chance to steer things away from the brainwashing of the world.

Instead, I think we should see the aquisition of language as a great chance to nurture their creativity. Try and expand their vocabulary, especially if you speak English. English has more words than any other language ever has and is the only language that requires a thesaurus. It is a shame that we use so little of these words.

One of the greatest writers of English was Joseph Conrad. In his very slim book, The Heart of Darkness, he shows how versatile and beautiful the English language can be. It can be, in fact, much more like mood music when describing a scene or an action, and the understanding of his meaning comes across in painted pictures rather than concrete descriptors.

This is, of course, notable because Joseph Conrad held English as his third language. His outside perspective of the language enabled him to see the true spectrum. He was free of the usuage of language that his parents and peers employed.

In many ways, it would be ideal if our children were free from the bonds of language that we impose on them. And in other ways, they will be; afterall, children get their accents not from their parents, but from their peers.

Conclusions?

No. But I think it's important as a caring father to have an expanded awareness of how we raise our kids. Creativity is an attribute that should be cultivated in our children, regardless of how it helps them do on standardized tests. We should embrace their interpretations of the world and let them indulge in their own thoughts and ideas as much as we can. Encourage them to play with language. Engourage them to think outside of the box. Ask them their interpretation of the world before offering them the easy answer. You may be surprised and, hopefully, you'll be open to the idea that you are no more right than they are; you just agree with the majority.

Not Willing to Give Up TV? 10 Ways to Tame it.

I’ve had a lot of response for my post, Giving up TV. In fact, on a normal day, the “hits” on that post register about 100 times more than hits on any other post. What’s the deal with that? Are we so fascinated by the idea that we actually can live without TV that it deserves to be met with such curiosity and excitement? Are there really people out there who haven’t thought about giving up their TV addiction? I don’t pretend to know the answers, but as long as I have the attention of a pretty large number of people, I want to encourage this movement away from media-dependence. You’ve probably noticed how pervasive the TV is.

With the TV on in our houses, our day is not our own. We make our schedules around it. We make decisions based on it. We give corporations a window into our houses. We hand out kids over to the corporate culture without thinking about it. And we pay for most of it.

And yet…

We are so fascinated with what they have to say about the weather that they say it every six minutes on morning. Then, after they’ve told us about the weather, they promise more about it in another six minutes. And we tune in again. Why is the weather so important to people in the morning? Bring a sweater! Put an umbrella in your car or bike! You don’t need to know what the day has in store! They’re probably wrong and you probably have a pretty good idea yourself.

We alter plans and possibilities of human interaction because of what’s on TV. They have molded your day when this happens. I once had a date tell me that she had to go home because TGIF was on ABC. Okay, it probably wasn’t the “quality” programming that was driving her away, but it seemed like a logical excuse to her. It seemed so because this isn’t uncommon. A friend of mine in college said that he called his mom because he was having a rough time adjusting and she said, “Let me call you back after Big Brother.” We establish and nurture relationships with the characters on TV even at the expense of our own friends and family.

The corporations that have us pay for their service make money not only from us but from the channels and advertisers on the other side of things. We are paying to watch ads. The shows are really just unfortunate side effects for the TV companies (unless, of course, they present good places for product placement). And we willingly sit our kids down to watch shows that leave them desiring cheap, useless merchandise that they don’t really want. Kids, especially pre-teen and teenagers, feel worse about themselves after watching commercials.

And I know what you’re thinking, “I’m not affected by commercials.” Then tell me why advertisers pay $200,000,000,000 a year for advertising on TV? You’re telling me it doesn’t work? You just don’t see the big picture like they do. It works. Trust me. Or trust them, at least.

But there are ways that you can help these strange events happening under your own roof. For one, you can get rid of the TV. But many just won’t do that. Luckily, there are other ways.

So. You’re not willing to give up the TV?

Big deal. This doesn’t mean you can’t join the fight against it. What the TV’s function is in most households is really the acknowledgement that you’re there, you’re alive, you’re awake. People wake up and turn the thing on as a symbol for “clocking-in” for your day. It will remain on, even if muted, for the rest of the day as long as you are in your house. For some people, this even means turning on TVs in multiple rooms. This TV being on is comforting for us. We were raised that way. We may even perceive our pets to prefer the presence of the all-knowing box. There are some very solid steps that you can take to tame the beast.

1. Mindful TV Watching
TV doesn’t have to be mindless. Only watch TV when there is something that you want to watch. Read that last sentence again. Make it a mantra. There is no reason to flip through channels seeking you-know-not-what. And don’t turn on the TV just because the kids want to “watch something” or “watch TV.” Ask them what they want to watch. Turn it on if you think that’s a good idea. Don’t offer suggestions, make them discern what it is they want to do with their time; this shouldn’t be just to waste time.

2. Impose Time Limits
I use to really make fun of friends of mine who said, “My mom only lets me watch an hour of TV a day.” But first, let us look at that statement. What, besides TV, does a parent let their child do for more than an hour a day? There just aren’t that many activities that we do that beg for four or five hours of our time every day. And those that do should hopefully give you some sort of product, like a backyard deck or a new guestroom, after a certain number of days.

3. Flexible Limits
You don’t have to stick with a certain amount of TV every day. I know parents who give their kids tickets to watch shows. This often results in siblings coordinating TV watching plans. Or, you can sit down on Sunday and map out a plan for the week—which shows are “important” to watch or a special movie night or some such.

4. Time Frames
Or, maybe TV watching is free in the morning, when little kids wake up too early and parents follow suit, but then goes off after everyone has had breakfast and gotten dressed for the day. That would at least encourage a view of TV watching as having a docile purpose in the day rather than a dictator of it.

5. Keep kids away from certain shows
What shows? Shows that are nothing but commercials masked in plots. Shows like Dora, Power Rangers, and the like. If there’s a huge amount of products associated with it, you should urge them in a different direction. These shows created misplaced desires and they direct those desires by changing characters, adding characters, encouraging collection, etc. And when you kid does collect them all, they will only see how unfulfilling it is when the movie comes out and all the old characters become irrelevant. Instead, shows like Arthur that are more closely associated with books can be a better alternative (but don’t fall for something like a Dora book—those things are like poison put to print when your child wants you to read it again and again).

6. Get Rid of Cable
And I don’t mean “buy Dish!” I mean, get rid of all those damn channels. How many of them do you watch? They spread the good channels out within their three or four strata of service options so that you have to get 150 channels to watch five good ones, but 200 channels to watch nine good ones. And having cable really detracts from the idea of mindful TV watching. Maybe you have a good antenna and can get the local channels. But I don’t recommend getting “basic cable” because a) they’ll talk you into getting a bigger package at less money and b) because you don’t need to send their kids to college—stop lining their pockets.

7. TIVO
I have no experience with TIVO whatsoever. But I have a few problems with it. 1) you’re paying for a service; 2) you probably still have cable; 3) You have to fast-forward through commercials when they should be automatically blacked-out. So, instead:

8. Get an AppleTV
I swear they’re not paying me to say this again. But with one of these expensive systems hooked up to your TV, you can only watch shows that you decide to pay for. You will automatically limit TV to shows that you actually want to watch and you will cut out commercials altogether. Plus, you never, ever have to change your schedule around a show (though you’ll often have to tell your neighbors not to say anything about Survivor until that weekend). I would happily rather pay for a show that doesn’t have commercials than watch a show for free that does. I’ve been saying that for at least 10 years before the AppleTV came out.

9. Get a DVD player
Oh, you have one? What’s it there for? I’ll tell you what it’s there for: mindful watching. Only shows you want, no commercials. This is especially helpful with the increased presence of quality TV shows being put on DVD compulsively and online things like Netflix getting them to you.

10. Get a blanket
To put over the screen. Make it hard to turn it on. Only take that blanket off when you really, really want to watch something. Bonus points if it’s a pretty blanket or a tapestry.

And, as always, there are plenty of alternative to watching TV at all. You will find yourself with more time, more energy, and more room for your families. Such are the things that being a badass dad are all about.

Valentine's Day

First of all, a happy Valentine's Day to those of you out there reading this--especially to those who care to have a happy one.

When I take a poll of my students to see what they think about Valentine's Day in my classes, they either say that they love it, or that "it sucks." And I wonder why the emotions are so strong about it. There is almost no one who feel in the middle about the subject and I don't think that the lines are drawn between those who have dates and those who don't; I think it goes much deeper than that. But for whatever reason, I can't find myself to feel passionate about it either way. I am hoping that readers here will offer their opinions and experiences to help shed light on the myriad of angles of this strange holiday.

I've come to the conclusion in recent days that I don't know exactly what to think about Valentine's Day. I can't find any convincing evidence that the day is based in a pagan holiday, like many of our meaningful holidays are. There's a sort of a conundrum in my mind that I can't find my way to resolve regarding Valentine's Day. It is an internal fight between a holiday that seems to have a great potential for fun, and a holiday that plasters our world with crappy, disposable gifts that are supposed to somehow relate the idea of Love. Let me explain.

The Negative Side

Obviously, this falls into the realm of rampant consumerism that I would rather my children weren't a part of. If I don't want them to buy into the consumer hype, I don't feel like I can participate. So this rules out buying any kind of presents that are specific to Valentines Day. Not that I find them to be great gifts in the first place, but those rows and rows of pink and red that adorn every grocery store are made to be temporary. They fall into the realm of "planned obsolescence," that is, products made to break or otherwise be temporary. Therefore, you essentially throw your money away on stuffed bears holding hearts singing lame songs about love, or boxes of sub-par chocolates, or daisies dyed red.

Not only is the consumerism side of things repulsive because they plan on taking our money for sub-par products that don't serve as proper emissaries of our love, but the whole thing reeks of obligation.

Many of the girls in the classes that I teach (I suppose for this and many other purposes, I treat them as a very unscientific data-collection group) say of their boyfriends, "He'd better get me something." And I don't know about you other husbands and boyfriends out there, but I rarely feel like I'm being loving or giving if I feel like I'm being measured by my performance. I should stress that this is not the majority of the voices that I heard, but the sentiment is not at all uncommon.

This is stressed by the convenience with which someone can buy Valentines Day presents. They are strewn about the fronts of super markets and WalMarts; they are sold on street corners; stores set up outdoor drive-up stands for chocolates and flowers. So let me ask you, if it's the thought that counts, how much thought goes into driving by a store on the way home from work and asking the boy in the drive through flower stand what they have left for under twenty bucks? Or, for that matter, picking up a gaudy red package of chocolate at the WalMart?

If it's an expectation or an obligation, and the products at large are being peddled, I can't be more repulsed by the idea of Valentines Day. But there are other sides to it, as well.

Positive Sides

To look at the positive side, I really go back in my mind towards my childhood, when I wasn't so aware of consumerism and there were no expectations placed on me to perform.

I used to love V-Day in school. We would decorate boxes and bring those stupid packs of cards for everyone in class. There was an excitement and exuberance in getting a card (though obligatory) from the girl that you liked. It was a fun activity and a nice break from the normal activities of school.

My parents used to get us little presents for Valentines Day, too. Not much, of course, but it was always welcome. I remember one time getting a gift certificate for Tower Records. But the best of all was a pocket-knife. It was a big step for a boy, getting a pocket knife. And I'll never know why Valentines Day was chosen for this, or if it was a thoughtful relationship or not. But whatever the gift, my parents never gave us stuffed heart-bears, and the present was always exciting.

The Ambiguity

With my role as husband, I don't know exactly where I currently stand on this strange holiday. I love my wife and look for ways to show it every day. I don't think that a day associated with a remote saint and a greeting card company is really the best opportunity for it. I know that my first couple V-Days with a girlfriend or a wife I labored under the notion that they were going to be really special. I expected to be let into some kind of super exclusive club of have Valentines Day Daters who were going to understand the true meaning of the holiday.

And it's no knock on my wife that this didn't end up being the case. Sure, we had fun. But really, the day didn't end up being all that, well, special. The distinction between something like a birthday or an anniversary is that those are days with a specific history to us. We can talk about our wedding day. Or where we wer